In the lands of the Ardamians there is a tale. A tale of the weather god, Shastalar, and of Tear, the spirit of nature. This tale is often told when the weather grows bad and the children huddles in front of the fireplace.

How may times have you read a book in which a famous hero’s sword is treasured and valued, not because it is magic, or because of its powers, but just because the hero wielded it. The “Sword of Enthar” the great warrior may just be a normal steel broadsword; but because he used it, it will be prized and treasured.

Most of the people who “spell components” really don’t know anything about magic. Components are used as tools, symbols to help focus the concentration and associations for the spell caster. Rarely is anything “consumed” in the casting, unless it is a sacrifice or burned.

Steamery is a type of learning, like Magery and Lettery (Magic of Written words, Scholarly works), akin to Alchemy which combined elements of the two. It is considered a type of magic, the use of the four basic elements to produce “magical” power.

Recently unearthed this gem of mine, and thought to post it. Its writing predates my joining of Strolen, and I found quite a few interesting bits in it. It is nearly completely written and I am going to endeavor to finish writing it out. Until then, I plan to post it here, perhaps a section a day or so. Enjoy, expand, criticism, comment.

The magic in my roleplay system is based around gemstones. It started off with the fact that wizards could use gems to regain lost mana: essentially, the gems were nothing more than glorified potions of mana. Since then I’ve managed to expand the uses of gems considerably and make them much more integral to the magic system; however, I still feel there is a lot more that I could do with them if I could only think of it! Basically, I’m asking for any ideas and suggestions that people have on how to make the gems and magic more interlinked.

Magic is a living entity, simple and non-sentient, but reactive to large-scale emotional states. Its name, like we might call a dog, “Dog”, is Garan. It is better to think of it as a huge astreal vine like plant, rather than an animal.

One of the common variations on magic is the concept of ‘sword mages’ or ‘knight mages’. We all know and love them as the folks in full plate that split globes in twain with flaming swords, before twirling around to change their flame sword to an ice sword so they can stab the flaming angel of vengeance in the chest to maximum effect.

The young priest had been healing in the market place for free. Someone seeking bounty gold had told someone at the temple. "Hut. Hut. Hut" The Temple Knights in formation came marching down from the temple.

The young priest stood up. He reached into his pouch. With a smile he put the top into the Bey. With a spin, the 1000 prayers to the spirits came forth. The spirit responded. The wind whirled and buffetted the troops. They fell into each other and were having trouble getting due to the wind that only they felt.

The priest picked up his top and ran away. They would not catch him today.

Peldor scrambled for his staff. It has all his tactical spells anchored. He dived to the floor, trying to dodge the incoming dart spells. All he had was his ring (for energy enhancements) and his belt buckle (which carried his personal enhancements spells). Papers, smoke, and wood splinters flew everywhere. In the chaos, he saw it - his lab desk’s sextant. He stretched, just touching with the tips of his fingers. He rolled forward. A dart struck infront of him. Spitting dust out of his mouth and squinting against the flying debree, he made solid contact. He whispered the trigger, utilizing his ring to make it cost less mana. The green mystic glow unfolded. It formed a full serephamic sheild. The hex bolts and darts were bouncing off it. Slowly he rose. He was able to take the three steps to reach his battle staff. Now, things would be different.

The Omen Plague has other names. It is known as The Star Plague and even The Mundane Plague. It is still with us today, now known by the common name of the Shaking Death. To set the stage, the stars were aligned in all the wrong signs. Everyone new something bad was going to happen. When winter set in hard and early, they thought that was it. They were wrong.

All Agera work with a base-8 system (though of course, in GMing, for simplicity, I don’t). Accordingly, the Mysian system of measuring is based on 8s. From dolon to dolmelphion, the system is fairly straightforward, but, traditionally, after dolmelphion, it becomes a touch more complicated.

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I once read a book about a group of people who discovered a hidden temple city in a mountain range, where the Incas-the ancient civilisation of Peru- had fled to when the spanish invaded. When this group found the burial chamber of one of the inca high priests, they unleashed a powerful curse upon them all...